Soldiers, gunmen battle in Acapulco

Firefight is in an area used by Mexican tourists

ACAPULCO, Mexico – Mexican soldiers waged an hours-long battle with heavily armed men holed up in a hillside mansion, killing 16 of the gunmen as Mexican tourists cowered in their rooms nearby. Two soldiers were killed in the clash.

Nine people, including three bystanders, were wounded in the rain of gunfire and grenades. The clash was several miles away from the main area where foreign tourists stay in high-rise hotels.

The shootout was a further blow to Mexico's tourism industry, already reeling from increased cartel violence and cancellations by foreigners scared away by the swine flu outbreak.

The battle erupted after soldiers received a tip that a group of armed men had gathered at a gated house in a seedy section of Acapulco where working-class homes bleed into 1950s mansions.

Several gunmen tried to flee but crashed their car into a military Humvee that was blocking the gate. At one point, more armed men with grenades arrived to reinforce the men in the house, but they died in the shooting, said an army colonel, who led the operation and spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Inside, soldiers found four men bound and shirtless who claimed they were Guerrero state police officers being held hostage. The soldiers confiscated 47 guns, grenades and ammunition, as well as several cars, including a Mercedes-Benz.

Five people inside the house were detained, including the four alleged officers, Mexico's Defense Department said in a statement.

Soldiers did not know the hostages were inside when the shootout began, and the colonel said their claims to be police would be investigated.

“We found them like this, handcuffed, and they say they were kidnapped. So if they were kidnapped, as they say, then we rescued them,” said the colonel, who gave reporters a tour of the house in a ski mask to protect his identity.

Military officials said they are still investigating who the gunmen are. But given the weapons stash, large home and late-model cars, it looked like the normal trappings for drug cartels. No drugs were found.

More than a dozen Mexican tourists were evacuated from a neighboring hotel strip that seems frozen in the 1950s, when Elizabeth Taylor held one of her weddings in Acapulco and John Wayne and “Tarzan” star Johnny Weissmuller threw lavish parties at Los Flamingos Hotel, less than 100 yards from where gunfire broke out.

Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located, has long suffered from the drug violence of cartels fighting for turf.

The Beltran Leyva cartel in particular has a strong presence in Acapulco. Last month, soldiers arrested a suspected cartel lieutenant as he stepped off a private plane in the northern city of Monterrey on his way back from Acapulco, where he said he'd met with cartel leader Arturo Beltran Leyva at a baptism party.

Acapulco, the premier resort town for America's rich and famous in the 1950s and 1960s, suffered a decline as traffic and urban sprawl took over the palm-swept ambience. It was reborn in the 1980s as a popular resort for Mexicans, and members of the working class now flock to the old hotel zone, where they can buy a two-night stay and transportation for as little as $50.

U.S. tourists also have returned during the past several years following construction of the new “Diamond Zone” strip of five-star hotels – on the other side of town from Saturday's violence. Acapulco now ranks with Cancun as one of Mexico's most-visited resort cities.

However, the swine flu outbreak in late April pushed hotel occupancy in Mexico to half of its normal rate and prompted the cancellation of many flights and cruise ship visits.

Los Flamingos Hotel had few guests and only two rooms with foreign visitors, according to hotel workers who insisted they had not heard the shooting the night before.

Cindy Pelaquin and Michelle Johnson, both of Boston, were watching the famous Acapulco cliff divers less than a mile away. They saw the military roadblocks but heard nothing.

“At the resorts, they basically tell you not to venture out,” Johnson said.

“It's pretty shocking. It's really sad. This a huge problem,” added Pelaquin, an insurance analyst whose friends already thought her trip to Mexico was risky because of swine flu. “Mexicans grow the drugs and send them to the U.S. where Americans buy them so we can't blame it just on this country.”

President Felipe Calderón has deployed more than 45,000 soldiers across Mexico to battle drug violence. More than 10,800 people have died since the offensive began in December 2006.

Although foreign tourists very rarely get caught in the violence, shootouts and kidnappings have become more frequent in resort areas such as Acapulco and Cancun. In 2007, a couple from Canada were wounded when someone fired into a hotel lobby in Acapulco.